


the parts in the sum of the whole.

by vicbartons



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Drabble Collection, M/M, One Shot Collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-05
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-10-04 20:20:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17311235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vicbartons/pseuds/vicbartons
Summary: a collection of drabbles and prompt fills.#2: please shut up! just shut up!





	1. you can coax the cold right out of me.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Is that my shirt?"; Teen AU, Teen and Up

This, Robert thinks, is probably what one gets for shagging their secret boyfriend right in his uncle‘s garage in broad daylight. 

Or trying to, at least.

He‘s stuck out in the backyard with his back against the garage‘s wall, after having pretty much clambered through its backdoor the moment Dan had wandered in. They could really only hope that - with a sandwich in one hand and his phone in the other - he had been too distracted to notice the couple of teenagers who were engaging in some heavy petting right against the hood of the shitty Vauxhall that Aaron was supposed to be working on.

But Robert can‘t even be bothered to think about that right now, not when he‘s standing out in the cold with only half his clothes on and freezing his arse off.

It‘s early January, but there‘s already only the odd batch of snow left covering trees and houses, rain having turned the rest of it into brown, watery mush on the ground by now that‘s slowly soaking the sock on Robert‘s right foot and making him shiver with its creeping cold. The hard pebbles underneath that feel like he‘s standing on a chunk of his little sister‘s beloved Legos aren‘t helping his mood either. Because yes, Robert‘s only got one shoe on and his tight grip on his pants is the only thing stopping them from falling right back down around his ankles, since he hasn‘t got a clue where he left his belt in the hurry. And god knows where his jacket has disappeared to.

He‘s humming a steady flow of expletives to himself and holding his socked foot in the air when the door behind him opens up with a long, deep squeak.

Robert‘s about to leg it again, missing shoe be damned, but then a head of familiar brown curls peeks around the corner and he sighs in relief instead, settling back against the wall. 

“Finally,” Robert mutters. 

“Sorry, sorry, sorry.”

The word just keeps falling from Aaron‘s lips like water off a cliff as he shuffles through the backdoor with his hands full, and he should be. He had been the one to drag Robert from college during his lunch break, the older boy never able to resist on the rare occasion that his boyfriend was gasping for it enough to tease him with a slew of text messages and pictures that were just on the right side of risky to get Robert‘s imagination going.

The thought alone makes that warm feeling stir in the pit of Robert‘s stomach again that Dan had managed to quench upon his unwelcome visit, but Aaron speaks up again and drags him from his budding daydream.

(And it‘s probably a good thing, because this really isn‘t the time, is it?)

“Dan wasn‘t s‘posed to be back from that job ‘til well after my shift though,” Aaron shrugs at him - blushing, and with an apologetic half-smile tugging at the corners of his face - and he‘s lucky that his dimples are enough to make up for pretty much everything in Robert‘s book.

“Or maybe you just like an audience,” he teases with a raised eyebrow and loves the way it makes Aaron‘s cheeks go even more red.

“Piss off.”

The shoe that Aaron chugs at him in return hits Robert square in the stomach, but it‘s his own so he doesn‘t complain. Just catches it and bends over to finally save his toes from falling off in the cold.

It‘s quiet for a second, the two of them busy with putting on the rest of the clothes that Aaron has managed to save from inside, before his boyfriend speaks up again. 

“Robert, is that my shirt?” Aaron asks and his voice goes a little thin with it. It isn‘t accusatory though, just a little astonished, but also warm and soft in a way that makes want curl in Robert‘s stomach. 

“What?” Robert straightens and looks down at himself, the dark, grey cotton covering his stomach familiar as anything, just not in the way it should be. “Oh,” it comes out with a surprised shrug. He hadn‘t even noticed with how hastily he had bolted out of the garage in hopes of saving the two of them as well as Dan the embarrassment that particular encounter would have most likely caused. ”I just grabbed the first thing I could find off the floor,“ he explains truthfully and faces Aaron. It‘s the first time he notices the lack of shirt underneath Aaron‘s trademark black hoodie, the odd chest hair poking out at the top.

He smiles with it.

“And yours never have any buttons, so-” It was an added bonus really, Robert‘s own dress shirts always a good look on him, but a right hassle.

Aaron‘s brows furrow a little and Robert can‘t help but huff a laugh at the all too common sight. “Don‘t go all grumpy on me,” he sighs affectionately. “I‘ll have it back to you in the morning.” (And he doesn‘t even mention that then it‘ll at least be properly washed and ironed for once, because he‘s nice like that.)

However, Aaron just waves him off, that shy smile still adorning his face. “Nah, keep it,” he mumbles and then his tongue is poking out between his lips for just a second like he can‘t even help himself.

_Oh._

“You what?” It‘s low and teasing and Aaron isn‘t having any of it.

“You heard,” he counters simply, but there‘s no bite to it.  “Keep it,” at that he lets his head tilt to the side like he‘s trying to get a better look, his bright blue eyes slowly dragging up Robert‘s torso til they‘re met by his boyfriend‘s darker ones. “Makes you look almost half fit, that.” 

It‘s probably the biggest compliment on his looks Robert‘s ever gotten from him outside the bedroom. Might be the biggest one he‘ll ever get, really.

“Does it now?” Robert asks with the smuggest grin on his face, because he‘s always been a bit of a git like that. (It‘s part of the charm. Just ask Aaron.) He hopes it‘ll make Aaron‘s cheeks go an even deeper shade of red and his eyes dark.

Instead, it makes Aaron shake his head at him in faux annoyance like it usually does, but only for a moment. Until he is too busy with grabbing Robert by his own favourite shirt and pulling him close. Until Aaron‘s tongue is curling against the back of Robert‘s teeth and his fingers are tugging on the hair in the back of Robert‘s neck and the older boy can‘t help but moan into it.

The sound works like a school bell though and suddenly Aaron‘s pulling away and giving his boyfriend a shove.

“Don‘t push it, Sugden,” he smiles with a glint in his eyes.

Then he‘s walking backwards, pulling the zipper of his hoodie right up to his neck, his teeth digging into his bottom lip in that way that makes Robert wanted to put his mouth right there instead.

Aaron tugs the arms of his overalls a little tighter around his middle before he turns around without another word and disappears back into the garage, leaving Robert high and dry.

Because, as it turns out, Robert isn‘t the only one in this relationship who can be a smug git if need be.


	2. if we do this right, we‘ll be bonnie and clyde

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: "Shut up. Just shut up."; Criminal AU, Hurt/Comfort, General Audience

They should have never let Cain talk them into this.

There are thousands of thoughts rushing through Robert‘s head a mile a minute, but that is the loudest one. A screeching alarm bell going off in the depths of his brain, overloading his senses.

Because they were supposed to be this sensible, grown-up couple these days, weren‘t they?

No more dodgy deals, no more lies and schemes. 

Just an average married couple, happy and loved-up. With nothing more to worry about than where to spend their weekly date night or whose job it was to pick up toilet paper from the shop this time around.

Only sensible grown-ups didn‘t run through the wad of cash they had made in what was supposed to be their very last heist within a year and a wedding. They didn‘t have to move into their little sister‘s spare room out in the middle of nowhere once their London rent had gotten too steep. Sensible grown-ups didn’t get turned down when asking for a loan, because neither one of them had a single steady employment to show for over the past ten years that was legal enough to mention on a CV. Sensible grown-ups didn‘t have rap sheets as long as their arms, clinging to them like a persistent rash and keeping them from ever making it through any landlord‘s rigorous vetting process without reverting to old tricks. Let alone the doors of an adoption agency.

Sensible grown-ups also probably didn‘t find themselves bend over their bed  midday on the regular, instead of out shopping for food at the local Tesco or job-hunting.

So maybe they weren‘t really ready for the whole responsible adult thing just yet anyway. If ever.

Still, they shouldn‘t have let Cain talk them into this.

Because they have only been married for ten months and there is still so much left that they want to do. So much more life to live together.

Only now Aaron is bleeding out on him on the linoleum floors of a nondescript corridor somewhere in the depths of the Tate‘s ridiculously massive headquarters and should and shouldn‘t haves suddenly aren‘t worth a damn thing anymore.

“Robert-” Aaron‘s voice is already far too small for his body and something in Robert threatens to break at the sound.

Robert has got his right hand on his left, holding them steady even with his trembling fingers as he presses hard against Aaron‘s middle. He tries to stop the blood from spilling, but Aaron‘s tight black t-shirt keeps growing impossibly darker despite his efforts, the edges of the fabric curling upwards around the wound in wetness right where the bullet cut through it. 

Cain had dubbed the bit of theft a no-brainer. A quick job; revenge and a big pay day all rolled up in one the way the older Dingle always likes it best. Well that and none of them had counted on Kim‘s bulldogged henchmen actually being willing to pull guns on them. Or catching them at all for that matter. They were  _RobertandAaron_  after all. They didn‘t get caught, did they? 

In retrospect, that way of thinking had been incredibly short-sighted. Naive even. 

But hindsight doesn‘t really help them now.

Robert‘s eyes keep flicking back and forth between his husband‘s face and the wound on his stomach and he can feel himself drowning in the impossibility of it all until Aaron speaks up again, his voice enough to drag him back to the surface. “Robert,” he whispers, but there‘s a strength to it Robert wasn‘t sure he had in him anymore with his lips as white as they are already. “You know that I-”

And Robert wants to hear him speak, because as long as he‘s speaking Robert can be sure he hasn‘t lost him yet, but he can‘t hear  _that_. Doesn‘t want it.

“Please Aaron, shut up!” The words are loud and sharp and echo through the halls. Booming enough to make Aaron‘s eyes go wide and take even Robert by surprise. It makes him press his hands down a little harder on Aaron‘s abdomen and take a breath. Long and deep, hoping it will right whatever‘s trying to come undone inside of him at the sight of his husband in pain. “Just shut the hell up,” Robert says under his breath. “Will ya?” It‘s a plea more than anything else. 

“No.” Aaron has always been the more stubborn one out of the two and that‘s saying something. There‘s a shake of his head that makes him hiss in pain, but he keeps going anyway. ”I need you to know -”

And of course Robert knows, knows it deep in his bones.

In all his life, one spun out of lies and schemes and make-believe, there has never been anything more true to him than how he feels about Aaron. Or that Aaron feels the same for him in return. It had scared him to the core, the first time they‘d met. When Robert had walked into the Woolpack for a drop-off in search of Charity a little over six years ago now and found her sort-of-nephew with the permanent scowl etched on his face instead. The tug he had felt in the pit of his stomach the moment their eyes met had never disappeared again from there on out, no matter how much of a sour git the younger man had been.  

Want at first sight, they sometimes call it. 

And then so much more after that. 

“I know, okay? Of course I know,” Robert presses out between clenched teeth and he wishes that this stupid game of theirs didn‘t suddenly carry so much weight, “but I need to stop you from dying on me right now and get us out of here and that will work a whole lot better, if you stop trying to say goodbye to me, you muppet.” 

Aaron actually manages to smile a little at the all too familiar nickname and Robert can‘t help but mirror it, all be it a little crooked with his lips bitten and his eyes red raw from trying to keep the tears at bay.

“Bossy,” Aaron mutters between shallow breaths.

“You love it.”

Somehow Aaron gets his eyes to focus on Robert then. “Yeah, I do,” he whispers like he always does when Robert teases him like this, but it‘s lacking its usual levity. “Robert, if-”

The dismay on Aaron‘s face makes Robert lean down until their foreheads are touching and his full weight is pressing onto the wound with him almost lying on top of his husband.

“Shush,” he breathes out and his nose rubs along Aaron‘s with the slight shake of his head. “I‘m gonna get you out of here and then we‘re gonna drop half the cash at Cain‘s and drive right off to Paris with the other half like we planned to. And then we‘ll make a real go of it, all above board, right?” And Aaron just closes his eyes and nods, breathes his husband in. 

Feeling his shallow breaths against his cheeks as reassurance finally gives Robert a chance to think.

He only has a vague idea of where they are. The corridors underneath the building complex that were starting to bear a scary resemblance to an unsolvable maze, with their never ending white blank walls and headache-inducing neon lights had managed to disorientate him once he had gone rogue and just made a dash for the first exit in sight. Usually Robert was a by the book guy, as far as criminals go - always sticking to carefully mastered plans - but the reflex to get his husband to safety at any cost had overruled all that. 

It‘s how he‘d gotten them lost.

“Ace job, Robert,” he thinks to himself. “So much for criminal mastermind.”

He has seen them before though, the corridors, of course he has. In the back of Cain‘s garage on a blueprint spread across the hood of an old Chevy, a system of tunnels spreading across the entirety of the property like a spiderweb. It was too bad that with all of Robert‘s skills, a photographic memory had never been one of them. 

There is one thing he remembers though. It‘s the way all those endless corners end in a clean circle on the outer edge, connecting all the tunnels. Some sort of aesthetic choice on Kim‘s part apparently - the older woman enarmored by the symmetry - but all Robert can see in it is the system‘s fatal flaw. A weakness to be exploited. 

He is a conman after all.

“I know how to get us out of here,” Robert splutters and rights himself. He runs his hand through Aaron‘s dark curls once before busying himself with trying to untie his tie one-handed, determination finally making his fingers stop shaking.

His other hand never leaves its place on Aaron‘s stomach.

“Knew I didn‘t just marry ya for your looks, Dingle,” Aaron mumbles with his eyes still closed and Robert tries his hardest to ignore how every syllable keeps being cut short by haggard breaths.

His stomach grows warm with the epithet nonetheless.

“Then off into the sunset,” Aaron coughs hard and opens his eyes slowly. Looks up at Robert through this lashes, “like that old-timey movie?”

Robert softens at the age-old argument. Indulges it to stop the air around them from growing so heavy.

“I‘ll have you know that The Getaway is a classic.” 

They had watched it one night in the early days, curling up on Robert‘s sofa for what one could almost call a proper first date. Robert had fallen hard and fast for the story and also maybe Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw. 

Aaron on the other hand? Not so much. 

The fact alone that they have still made a habit of watching it at least once a year with only a minimal amount of grumbling from his better half makes Robert love Aaron all the more. ”But yes,” Robert adds on, his eyes no longer just watery, but a tear making its way down his cheek, “exactly like that. Because you‘re going to be just fine, Sugden.”

Aaron just breathes and it‘s all that Robert needs from him right now.

“So you‘re gonna hold on for me now, ey?” He asks anyway, more for himself than because he actually expects a response.

But Aaron has always been good at giving Robert more than he needs.

“Yes, boss,” he‘s barely opening his mouth now, but he‘s still there and that‘s everything. 

Robert presses one last kiss onto Aaron‘s forehead and then he gets on with it: Rips a strip of his dress shirt and ties it around Aaron‘s middle with the sage green necktie his husband hates so much, pulls him off the ground, throws an arm around his shoulder and just keeps walking until he notices a slight curve in the walls indicating that they‘ve actually reached the outer edge of the premises and his earplug crackles and shrieks as the connection builds back up, Cain barking at him through it soon after. Robert just keeps running and praying to whoever up there is willing to listen that they‘ll be okay.

(It‘s the last time the two of them get hands-on with a dodgy job. Not because Aaron doesn‘t make it. He does. Barely, but he makes it. No, it‘s because Robert makes it clear that the gashing scar on Aaron‘s abdomen that matches the one on his husband‘s chest all too much is the last one he‘s willing to bear. And the tired look on his face as he says it, the way his eyes go hollow like the thought alone is making him lose the will to live, is haunting enough that Aaron doesn‘t want to disagree.

Yet, Robert‘s still runs the odd con job out of the basement on the side even seven years later - with their little daughter perched on his lap - and Aaron might find himself laying out a classic thievery trick on deep web forums every now and again.

But that is all it is. Desk jobs, really. 

Aaron and Robert have grown sensible after all.)

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr [@vicbartons](https://vicbartons.tumblr.com/).


End file.
